Vegas Vice Returns for March Madness

For the conference tournaments, depth of talent is a very important factor in handicapping games as the weekend progresses. It's a grueling task to ask any team to win four games in four days. Check the box scores after each game to see how many minutes the starters were forced to play. If there is an overtime or double-overtime game, look for the team winning that game to be fatigued in its next game.

In such a situation, I'll adjust my point spread to account for what I believe will be an abnormal performance by the fatigued team. If you doubt this angle, look at what Creighton, which is 10 players deep, did to Southern Illinois on Monday night.

Particular matchups are sometimes important. For example, certain teams live and die by the three-point shot. A team like Indiana defends the three-point shot better than any team in the country, allowing only 4.7 of 16.4 (28.4%) three-pointers to be made per game. Thus, I would be more likely to bet a team like Indiana when they are playing a team like Minnesota, which averages 21 three-point shots a game. To prepare for this angle and others, I check the season statistics at one of the many great Web sites that carry statistical information.

Certain point-spread trends have emerged over the last few years. One of the strongest trends in conference tournaments can be seen when a favored team is playing a team that it lost to in either the last of the two games they played this season or in the only game they played this season. That situation is called "Favorite Single Revenge," and between 1996 and 2002, the favorite has covered the point spread about 60% of the time under those circumstances.